CPRE calls for stricter safeguards as fracking licences awarded

It was announced today that 27 areas have been awarded licences for oil and gas exploration across the Midlands and northern England. A further 132 are set to be awarded across the country, pending environmental assessment.

In response to the announcement, Nick Clack, senior energy campaigner at the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), said:

“If fracking is to go ahead anywhere, it needs to be within the strictest safeguards and with community approval. Yet the Government is announcing that new licences will be offered just as ministers threaten to take fracking decisions away from local communities and while environmental controls in protected areas remain inadequate. The public understands the need to diversify our energy supply, but a licence to frack should not give licence to trample over local people and their environment.

“There now needs to be a decisive shift to shore up environmental safeguards and reassure communities. We need financial guarantees up front to restore any affected landscapes, and a requirement to fully assess the local environmental impacts of multiple wells in the same area. The Government has also never assessed the potential national impact of shale oil, as opposed to shale gas, so ministers must now set out its full rationale for its exploration.”